Back on the Road

Not bad for an iPhone picture, Kosciuszko national parkYeay! back on the road again but this time the total opposite side of Australia to last time. The East Coast is a place that I've seen sparaticilly over my life, I grew up in Brisbane and have seen a few of the sights to the north and south but never like this. This time we are taking a bit of time to get from A to B and taking it all in... as you do.

So we started off in Brisbane where we picked up our new car fit for touring, sorry Barina your good for one but a bit cramped with two! Coffs Harbour and Belingin were the first stops for the 5 day adventure that was Global Carnival and a bit of a catch up with the in-laws.

Then to the secluded beaches of southern NSW of which 7 Mile Beach was the pick. The picture for this post was of course not from the beach but from the Kosciuszko national park where we spent the last days frolicking in the snow and in between getting some magic photos of the high alpine country.

Yesterday and today see us again by the sea at lakes Enterance on our way to the southern most point on mainland Australia and a place that I've wanter to photograph for many years now, Wilson Promontory.

Photo of the day: Sunday 2 August 2009

I Like Mountains, Slovakia

Photo of the day: Saturday 1 August 2009

Mala Studena Dolina

Photo of the day: Thursday 30 July 2009

Wildflowers after the melt, Tatra Mountains Slovakia

Keeping on with the processing of HDR images from my trip to Europe last month and I'm still finding shots that I haven't properly looked at. Over the two months in Europe I shot a total of around 11,000 images and although I have categorised them and they are all in the right place spending enough time to find the gems is difficult.

After the categorisation process and first ranking round on the images I was a little burnt out on these images because it took two days straight. Being burnt out I found that I couldn't be objective enough to see the quality photos that have potential over the ones that are less likely to become a finalised photograph. Now more than two weeks after my return to Alice Springs and the mind numbing task of sorting all the images my eyes are working again.

Photo of the day: Tuesday 28 July 2009

Sunrise in The Tatra, Slovakia

Photo of the day: Friday 24 July 2009

Tatra Mountain Sunrise, Slovakia

One of my favourite photos from my trip that I have processed so far. This was an incredibly cold morning at only 3 degrees but it was one of the only two days where I had clear skies at sunrise so it was easy to get up. This little lake was only about 200m away from where the hut was located so luckily I didn't have to go far for this shot and had time to get a coffee going before I started shooting.

I shot this scene as part of a HDR sequence and although it was going to be a good photo I assumed that the final HDR would a better image than the single frame original. But after all the processing the HDR just couldn't hold up to the processed single photo because the dynamic range of the scene was perfect with nothing over exposed to the point of clipping. In the processing I applied a half stop ND grad filter over the skies and mountains at the rear and would you believe I pulled down the color vibrancy and saturation just a few points.

In the Bag, How and What I Carry

The bag ready to go In this post I'll give a run down of how I pack my bag when heading out for an overnight or multiple night walk with my camera. In total I carry 9Kg of camera gear including the tripod which is essential for taking good sunrise and sunset photos so take it with you. Most of the camping gear I have is designed for light weight setup and so the cost of these is higher than heavier gear because you pay for less weight often a lot for just a few hundred grams but if you have ever walked long distance you'll know that everything counts.

The biggest tip I can give for bag comfort is BALANCE if you have an off center balance to the bag ie. a tent strapped to the outside right of the bag and nothing to counter on the left side of the bag you'll be off balance. When the bag is unbalanced it will pull down unevenly on the shoulder straps and will eventually cause one side of your body to become fatigued more than the other. It wont just make your shoulder fatigued it will make everything fatigued including your lower back which is danger country. So when ever you pack make sure it is balanced, I counter balance the tent with my tripod strapped to the other side because they are around the same weight.

The bag that I currently use for overnight walks in not a dedicated camera bag it is just a common brand of backpack that you can get everywhere its a Burghaus 65Lt backpack. I do carry a LowePro camera bag which is just a small over the shoulder bag that I bought years ago this bag fits perfectly into the lower compartment of the lager Berghaus backpack. It was such an easy solution to the set of problems that I had to work with that I bought the Berghaus bag straight away.

The lower compartment of the bag is only about 1/3 of the total space which leaves more than enough room for all my cloths, sleeping bag, thermarest mat, cooker and food. The only miss-match is that the 70-200 f/2.8 has to go into the upper compartment as well making it difficult to get out and setup, I missed plenty of wildlife shots in Europe because to this. A solution was to attach the lens case to my waist strap but this was an uncomfortable way to carry the lens, it does weigh 1.5Kg.

On the outside left and right sides of the bag I carry my tent and tripod which are both evenly matched for weight at around 2Kg each. Like I said before balance is key when carrying a lot of weight so when I'm using my tripod I will move the tent to the top of the bag to keep the whole thing in balance. In total the whole lot weights about 25Kg +/- 3Kg for water and this probably sounds like a lot but when it is balanced and you use the waist straps on the backpack properly it can be a comfortable setup. 

This setup was the end result of trial and error and when error results in pain you learn pretty quickly so you can trust me about this setup. I'll write a post when we get back from the trek about how it all went but it should be pretty uneventful as far as the backpack is concerned finger crossed.

Gear outside the bagMain compartment GearCamera Gear BelowThe two bags

Tripod attachedModified Outer